The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  Anna stopped. Just beyond the machine, low in the great wall of the chamber, was a hole: a perfect circle of blackness in the green-black material of the wall. She walked another few paces. Just beyond the first hole was another, and a third. Tunnels. Undoubtedly tunnels.

  But leading where?

  Her heart pounding, she went over to the first of them. It was a small tunnel, barely large enough to walk within, but made, not natural. The same green-black stone lined the walls. It went down, into darkness.

  The second tunnel was the same. The third, to her surprise, was not a tunnel at all, but a storeroom of some kind. Broad, empty shelves lined both sides of that excavated space.

  Anna stepped out then looked across.

  So which was it to be? The first tunnel or the second?

  Neither, she decided. Or not now, anyway. Not without first preparing for the journey. That was the proper way of going about things: the way her father had taught her.

  But that would mean squeezing through the tiny gap in the rock fall once again, then walking across the desert to where the cart was hidden. That last part alone was a two-hour journey, which was fine in the moonlight, but would be an ordeal under the desert sun.

  And for what? She wasn’t going to go that far in. She only wanted to see if they led anywhere.

  Five hundred paces. That was all she would allow herself. And if it did not look to be leading anywhere, she would come straight back.

  Okay. But which?

  Without making a conscious decision, her feet led her into the right-hand tunnel.

  One, two three, she counted, her left hand steadying her against the wall as she began the steady descent. Seven, eight, nine.

  Five hundred. It wasn’t far.

  Ahead of her the darkness stretched away, running deep into the rock, forever just beyond the bright reach of her lamp.

  Eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four…

  §

  Having traveled much farther than her planned five hundred paces, Anna found that she was lost. She did not want to admit it to herself, but she was lost. After that last left-hand turn she had doubled back, but she had come out in a place she hadn’t been before. Or, at least, she couldn’t remember having been there. It was a kind of cavern, only it was small and perfectly spherical.

  She had lost count an hour ago. Two hours, maybe. Who knew down here? All she knew was that the map she had been following in her head had let her down. She had made one wrong turn and everything had seemed to slip away.

  It was a labyrinth—a perfect maze of interlinked tunnels, all of which looked the same and seemed to lead…nowhere.

  A tomb. It had to be a tomb. And this was part of it, this maze in which she was now inextricably lost.

  She would die down here, she was certain of it now.

  The thought made her stop and put her hand out to steady herself. Her head was pounding.

  Think, Anna. Think what you’re doing.

  Anna looked up. The voice was clear in her head, almost as if he had spoken.

  “I can’t think,” she answered. “I’m frightened.”

  Fear’s the enemy of thought. Think, Anna. Consider what you ought to do.

  She let her head clear, let the fear drain from her mind. Slowly her pulse normalized. She took one of the hammers from her belt and held it up.

  “I need to mark my way.”

  Slipping the hammer back into his holster, she slipped the pack from her shoulder and took out the notebook.

  “I’ll make a map.”

  It was what she should have done to begin with, but it was too late now. The best she could do now was to slowly chart her way back to that first straight tunnel, before the way had branched. How long that would take she did not know, but if she was methodical, if she marked each tunnel wall, each branch of it with a letter and a number, then maybe, after a while, she would see the pattern of it on the page.

  It was a slender chance, but her best.

  Anna turned, looking about her. The tunnel sloped down. Just beyond her it forked. She walked across and, slipping her notebook into her tunic pocket, took the hammer and chisel from her belt.

  The first blow was solid—she could feel the way the hammer hit the handle of the chisel squarely and firmly—but the wall was unmarked. She stared at it in astonishment, then repeated the blow. Nothing. There was not even a scratch on the green-black surface.

  It was just as before, when she had tried to take the sample.

  Anna groaned. It had been her only hope. Now she really was lost.

  Paper wraps stone. So use paper. Squares of paper.

  Of course! She could tear pages from her notebook and leave tiny squares of paper on the floor beside each entrance. It would have exactly the same effect. At once she tore a page from the book and tore it in half, then in half again. Four pieces. It wasn’t enough. She’d soon work her way through her stock of paper. She would have to leave much smaller pieces. She tore them in half again, and then a fourth time.

  There. That should do it. She had about fifty pages—that ought to be enough.

  Crouching, she began to write on them—AI to AI6. She would allocate two pages to each letter, and then move on to the next. That way she would hopefully chart “areas” of the labyrinth. And if she came back to one of them, say C, she would know exactly where she was on her map, and be able to turn away in a different direction, until she knew exactly how it all fit together.

  Anna looked up, smiling grimly. She wasn’t beaten yet.

  §

  The Guild House was in the oldest part of town, surrounded by the halls of all the major guilds. From its steps one could look out over the great sprawl of D’ni to the harbor and the great arch named after the legendary prince Kerath.

  Turning from the steps through a row of fluted marble pillars, one entered a massive vestibule of irregular shape. Here, set into the floor, was a great mosaic map of the main cavern of D’ni, while the floors of the smaller rooms, leading directly off the vestibule, displayed similar mosaic maps of the lesser caverns.

  The ceiling of the vestibule was not high—barely twice the height of a standing man—yet it had a pleasant look to it. Great arching beams of pale mauve stone thrust out from the walls on every side, thinning to a lacelike delicacy as they met overhead.

  On the right-hand side of the main room was a great arched door. The carved stone fanned about the doorway had the look of trees, forming a natural arch in some woodland glade. Beyond it was the great Council chamber.

  It had long been a standing joke that the D’ni would never excavate to the east of the main cavern, lest they had to redesign the Guild House, but the truth was that the rock to the east was home to a stable reservoir of magma, slowly cooling over the millennia, from which they had long tapped energy.

  Stepping through the massively hinged doors—each door a great slab of stone three feet thick and ten high—one entered the most impressive of D’ni’s many chambers. The great dome of the ceiling seemed far overhead, eighteen huge pillars reaching up like massive arms to support it. Broad steps, which also served as seats, led down into a circular pit, in the midst of which were five huge basalt thrones.

  The great shields of the guilds hung on the outer walls, along with their ancient banners.

  Today the thrones were occupied, the great steps filled with seated members, here to debate whether the edict banning contact with the “outsiders,” the “surface-dwellers” as they were otherwise known, should be lifted.

  For six hours they had sat, listening to the arguments for and against, but now the debate was finally coming to a close. The young Lord Veovis was speaking, standing at his place on the second steps, just before the thrones, summing up the case for maintaining things as they were, his confident eloquence making many of the older members nod their heads and smile.

  As Veovis sat, there was the sound of fists drumming on the stone—the D’ni way of signaling approval. He looked about him, smil
ing modestly, accepting the silent looks of praise.

  Across from him, just behind the thrones and to the right, some six steps up, Aitrus looked on, concerned now that the time had almost come. Veovis still thought he was going to abstain. Indeed, he was counting on it, for the matter was so finely poised that a vote or two might well decide it. But he could not abstain, and though he knew he might well damage their friendship, he had to do what he believed was right.

  But knowing that made it no easier.

  There was a brief murmur in the chamber, and then Lord Eneah slowly raised himself up out of his throne, his frail figure commanding the immediate attention of all. Silence fell.

  Lord Eneah had been gravely ill, and his voice now as he spoke seemed fatigued; yet there was still a strength behind it.

  “We have heard the arguments, Guildsmen, and many among you will have already decided what you think. Yet this is a grave matter, and before we take the irrevocable step of a vote, I feel there should be the opportunity for a more informed debate of the matters raised. We shall come to a vote in an hour, but first we shall adjourn this sitting and retire to the vestibule.”

  If some were disappointed by this, they did not show it, while others nodded, as if the decision were wisdom itself. The D’ni were a patient race, after all, and many matters that might have been decided “hastily” in the chamber had been resolved in the more informal atmosphere of the vestibule.

  The remaining Lords rose to their feet and made their way out, followed a moment later by the other members of the great Council.

  If the great chamber had been all solemnity and dignity, the vestibule was buzzing with talk, as members went from group to group, attempting to persuade others to their cause.

  Rarely in recent years had a single issue raised so much heat and passion, and now that a vote was but an hour off, both camps made great efforts to win last-minute converts to their causes.

  Aitrus, who had drifted into the vestibule alone, stood beneath the great arch a moment, looking across to where Veovis stood beside Lord Eneah, who sat in a chair that had been brought out especially for him. Veovis was addressing a small crowd of elder members, undaunted by the fact that many there were a century or two older than he. Such confidence impressed Aitrus, and he knew for certain that Veovis would one day sit where Lord Eneah had sat today, in the central throne.

  It was not the right time, not just now, when Veovis was among such company, yet he would have to speak to him, to tell him of his change of mind, before they returned to the great chamber.

  Aitrus made his way across, smiling and greeting other guildsmen as he went. Yet he was barely halfway across when he noticed a disturbance on the far side of the vestibule.

  He craned his neck, trying to see. The door guards were arguing with someone. Then, abruptly, it seemed, they stood back, allowing the newcomer to pass. It was a senior guildsman from the Guild of Messengers. In one hand he clutched a sealed letter.

  As the Council members began to realize that there was an intruder among them, the noise in the vestibule slowly died. Heads turned. Guildsmen turned to face the newcomer as he made his way between them, heading directly to where Lord Eneah sat.

  The vestibule and chamber were normally sacrosanct. To permit a Messenger to enter while they were in session was almost unheard of. This had to be a matter of the greatest urgency.

  By the time the Messenger stepped out before Lord Eneah, a complete silence had fallen over the vestibule. Kneeling, the man bowed his head and held the letter out.

  At a gesture from Lord Eneah, Veovis took the letter and, breaking the seal, handed it to the elder. Eneah slowly unfolded the single sheet, then, lifting his chin and peering at it, began to read. After a moment he looked up, a faint bemusement in his eyes.

  “Guildsmen,” he said, “it appears the decision has been made for us. We have a visitor. An outsider from the surface.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, followed by a sudden uproar in the chamber.

  PART THREE: FAULT LINES

  For the rest of that day the high-council—the five Great Lords and the eighteen Grand Masters—sat in special session to decide what should be done.

  While they were meeting, rumors swept the great city in the cavern. Many concerned the nature of the intruder, speculating upon what manner of creature had been taken by the Maintainers. While most agreed that it was humanoid in form, some claimed it was a cross between a bear and an ape. Other rumors were wilder yet. One such tale had it that a whole tribe of outsiders—heavily armed savages, intent on trouble—had come far down the tunnels, trying to force entry into D’ni, and that it had taken the whole garrison of Maintainers, backed up by the City Guard, to fight them off.

  Such “news,” Aitrus was certain, was completely unfounded, yet in the absence of hard fact even he found himself caught up in the games of speculation—so much so, that as evening fell and the lake waters dimmed, he left his rooms and set out through the narrow alleyways of the upper town, intending to visit the Hall of the Guild of Writers where his friend Veovis dwelt.

  If anyone outside that central group of Lords and Masters knew what was happening, Veovis would.

  Arriving at the gate of the ancient hall, Aitrus waited in the tiny courtyard before the main doors while a steward was sent to notify Veovis of his presence.

  Several minutes passed, and then the steward returned.

  Aitrus followed him through, between high, fluted pillars and along a broad mosaic path that bisected Ri’Neref’s Hall, the first of five great halls named after the greatest of the guild’s sons. Like most of the ancient Guild Halls, the Hall of the Guild of Writers was not a single building but a complex of interlinked buildings and rooms, some of them cut deep into the face of the great cavern. As Aitrus ventured farther into the complex, he climbed up narrow flights of ancient steps, the stone of which seemed almost to have been melted over time, like wax, eroded by the passage of countless feet over the six millennia of D’ni’s existence.

  Here, in this great sprawl of ancient stone, two thousand guildsmen lived and ate and slept. Here they were educated, here went about the simple daily business of the guild. Here also were the book rooms and great libraries of the guild, the like of which could be found nowhere else in D’ni.

  Walking through its ancient hallways, Aitrus felt the huge weight of history that lay behind the Writers Guild. Though the Writers claimed no special privileges, nor had a greater voice than any other on the Council, it was held to be the most prestigious of the Eighteen, and its members had a sense of that.

  To be a Writer, that was the dream of many a D’ni boy.

  The steward slowed, then stopped before a door. Turning to Aitrus, he bowed again. “We are here, Master.”

  Aitrus waited while the steward knocked.

  A voice, Veovis’s, called from within. “Enter!”

  The steward pushed the door open a little and looked inside. “Forgive me, Guild Master, but it is Master Aitrus, from the Guild of Surveyors.”

  “Show him in.”

  As the steward pushed the door back, Aitrus stepped forward. Veovis was in his chair on the far side of the big, low-ceilinged study. Books filled the walls on every side. A portrait of Rakeri, Veovis’s father, hung on the wall behind a huge oak-topped desk. In tall-backed chairs close by sat two other men—one old, one young. The elder Aitrus recognized as Lianis, Veovis’s tutor and chief adviser, the younger was Suahrnir, Veovis’s Maintainer friend.

  “Ah, Aitrus,” Veovis said, getting up, a broad smile lighting his features. “Welcome, dear friend.”

  Aitrus heard the door close quietly behind him. “Forgive me for intruding, Veovis, but I wondered if you had any news.”

  Veovis came over and took his hands, then, stepping back, gestured toward the chair beside his own. “It is curious that you should arrive just at this moment. Suahrnir has just come from the Guild House. It seems the High Council has finished deliberating. A notice
is to be posted throughout the city within the hour.”

  “So what is the news?”

  Veovis sat. The smile had gone from his face. “There are to be special Hearings, before the Council.”

  Aitrus sat, looking to his friend. “Hearings? What kind of Hearings?”

  Veovis sat. The smile had gone from his face. “There are to be special Hearings, before the Council.”

  Aitrus sat, looking to his friend. “Hearings? What kind of Hearings?”

  Veovis shrugged. “All I know so far is that the outsider is to be interrogated, and that we, as Council members, will be allowed to witness the interrogation. My assumption is that the questions will have to do with the nature of life on the surface.”

  “He speaks D’ni?”

  “Not a word. And it is not a he, Aitrus. The outsider is a female.”

  Aitrus blinked with surprise. “A woman?”

  “A girl. A young girl, so I am told, barely out of infancy.”

  Aitrus shook his head. It was difficult to believe that anyone, let alone a young girl, could have made her way down from the surface. He frowned. “But if she speaks no D’ni, then how are we to question her?”

  “Who can say?” Veovis answered, the slightest hint of irony in his voice. “But it appears she is to be handed over to the Guild of Linguists. They are to try to make sense of her strange utterances. That is the idea, anyway. Personally, I would be surprised if she does more than grunt for her food when she wants it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, I am quite certain of it, Aitrus. Word is that she is a rather large-boned animal, and totally covered in hair.”